For the first time since he became a professional golfer in 2010 —an unlikely vocation for a late bloomer who walked onto the golf team at Florida’s Johnson & Wales University —Ben Silverman is embarking on an actual off-season.
He is not outside an important FedEx Cup ranking and fighting for points with the schedule shrinking. He is not preparing for qualifying school or Korn Ferry Tour Finals. He is not signing up for mini-tour events to make ends meet. He is not studying pin sheets as he drifts off to sleep.
After his most consistent big-league season, Silverman has earned himself a full two months off. He sits 106th on the FedEx Cup Fall’s ranking —the top 125 by season’s end retain exempt status —but after climbing to 91st with a T4 at the Procore Championship in Napa, Calif., in mid-September, Silverman crunched the numbers and determined he could shut things down early. Then he had his agent do the same math and then they double-checked their findings with the PGA Tour. After competing last week in Japan, Silverman is skipping the tour’s final three tournaments.
Its newfound territory for the 36-year-old native of Thornhill, Ont., and the perks are plentiful. It means an extended run at home. It means many family dinners with his wife and two young children. It means planning out a spring schedule in advance. It means booking flights and hotels now. It means ample time to work on his game and his body to be ready, refreshed and healthy for when the calendar turns.
“It’s incredible,” said Silverman on Monday between a range session and a workout. “It’s like what football players get in the summertime and what baseball players get in the wintertime.”
This was Silverman’s third full PGA Tour season and it came five long years after back-to-back campaigns 2018 and ’19. In between, he played some 60 events on the Korn Ferry Tour, breaking out on the Triple-A circuit in 2023 with a victory, two runners-up and a third. Though the fourth in Napa was his only top 10this season, he finished inside the top 20 seven times and missed only seven cuts in 25 starts. He was among the tour’s best putters, long a hallmark of his game, and he is 32nd on the very-telling strokes gained total ranking.
“I was consistently playing really well,” Silverman said. “I think what a lot of people don’t realize is that when you are finishing top 20 your game is in good enough shape to finish first, second or third. It’s just a matter of a few putts dropping here and there and different types of momentum throughout the round. But if you are finishing top 20 your game is on.”
The week his game was on the most, and the one that ultimately paved the way for his extended break, came as something of a surprise given the weeks that proceeded it. At the PGA Tour’s last regular season event, the Wyndham Championship in early August, Silverman fell ill during the second round and missed the cut by one shot. He went straight from the course to bed and was eventually diagnosed with pneumonia, which put him out of commission for three weeks. That meant no range, no gym and 15 pounds lost. When he eventually recovered he had just a handful of days to practise and prepare for the first fall event in Napa.
“I had no clue what my game was going to be like and my clubhead speed was way down and I didn’t have the energy that I’d had a month prior,” Silverman said.
But the North Course at Silverado Resort favours accuracy over distance and its firm turf allowed Silverman to chase his ball down fairways. With few expectations, he fired a first-round 68, followed it up with a 71 and then went low on Saturday with a 65. He closed with a 71 in tough scoring conditions to move three spots up the leaderboard and register his best career PGA Tour finish.
“It was probably the most relaxed and comfortable I’ve played being that close to the lead,” Silverman explained. “I felt like I belonged there, in that situation … I was playing really steady, really solid. Going to bed in between round three and round four, I knew I was going to play good in the fourth round. I just had that feeling like this is going exactly the way I want it to. And that was the first time I had that feeling on Sunday when I was that high up on the leaderboard.
“I was just playing, almost free-rolling in my mind because coming off pneumonia I didn’t know what to expect,” he continued. “I went in there just trying to see what I got, and as the tournament unfolded and I started seeing a lot of good shots and putts rolling in, I think it was a realization that this is the way I play golf now, and I’m a lot better than what I thought I was in years past. It was confidence setting in, that I’m a better player, that I’m more comfortable in my own skin.”
Silverman pocketed over $250,000 in Napa and totalled north of $1.2 million on the season, some $500,000 more than his previous best haul. And while he knows maintaining his full PGA Tour status for the first time is worth celebrating, he believes he’s graduated to eyeing bigger prizes.
“As my game is feeling better and I’m getting more self-confidence, a lot more of my focus is on winning,” he said. “So making cuts and finishing 40th doesn’t give me any excitement. Even though it’s good and I’m still playing well to do it, that’s not the goal anymore.”